The servers that Apple receives and processes Siri commands was down for many iPhone 4S users across the US on Thursday afternoon. Users began talking about this outage around 2PM Eastern Time on Twitter. Not everyone has been receiving problems.

The problems seem to lie within the carrier. When users ask Siri a question or use it to perform a task, Siri replies with, “Sorry, I am having trouble connecting to the network.” Apple has not publicly confirmed whether the problem is server-side or carrier-side. However, VentureBeat spoke to an AppleCare technician who acknowledged that it’s possible that Siri is experiencing an outage.

Source: Ars Technica

While it’s true that most iOS games are “pick-up-and-play” games, the device is set up to be capable of running “intimate experiences.” With support for headphones and a beautiful backlight on the device, simply turn your lights out and pick up Dark Meadow. Dark Meadow is a game that is pretty well-designed, especially for a mobile game. The game is creepy and even scary at times, but definitely fun.

The plot is fairly simple. You wake up in a strange building with no reconciliation of where you are or why you’re where you are. When you wake up, an old man in a wheelchair begins asking the player for help to explore the building. He’s looking for a way out, and now it’s your job. You, being the hero, agree to this request and begin your journey to get out.

When your player goes out into the halls, you quickly come to the realization that you and the wheelchair man aren’t the only ones in the building. Monsters come running after you almost immediately. You will even earn experience and weapon upgrades as you go. The monsters aren’t particularly challenging, so don’t expect to start sweating playing this game.

There is an “endboss” that requires you to be an extremely high level, or so it seems. You will have to do lots of grinding to get up high enough to be powerful enough to kill him. Nevertheless, it gives you an ultimate goal and keeps you busy and motivated.

Dark Meadow is now available via the App Store for $5.99.

Source: Ars Technica

Sprint has admitted that this isn’t the route they intended to take, but they kind of ran out of options if they want to “remain” competitive with carriers that are already offering the iPhone. The iPhone is “the number one reasons customers leave or switch” from Sprint.

While 30.5 million devices in four years time may be a bit risky, it isn’t impossible. Their worry should be if people are really willing to switch from the more reliable and faster network, Verizon Wireless, or the largest network, AT&T. In fact, Sprint finished second, behind Verizon Wireless, in customer satisfaction. As of now, Sprint remains the only carrier to offer unlimited data use, unless of course you’re grandfathered in by a pre-existing network (Midwest Wireless, Alltel, etc.).

Apple will be unveiling their first handset, hopefully the iPhone 5, that will be going partly to Sprint, along with Verizon Wireless and AT&T, tomorrow at their “Let’s Talk iPhone” event.

Source: Ars Technica

Different heroes have different abilities within Tiny Heroes. There is everything from “spiked floor tiles to saw blades to animated treasure chests and angry orcs” available to different heroes.

At some point, you will be forced to decide which defense items you want to take into the battle. Defenses are pretty weak, so you will have to replace destroyed booby traps with the hero as soon as possible. Instead of traditionally building up a brutal force that just demolishes any and everything, you will build a defense that gets by wave by wave.

Purple crystals will provide mana necessary to build new defenses. Unlike most tower-defense games, you will not get anything for killing enemies. Thus, these purple crystals are heavily important, as your “energy,” or mana, relies almost completely on them.

Source: Ars Technica

iPhone users spend nearly twice as much as the average amount of time playing games on their mobile platform. iPhone users spent 14.7 hours playing mobile games over the 30 day period. To compare, Android users spent 9.3 hours. The overall average is 7.8 hours, which would have been impacted by the 14.7 and 9.3, as that is naturally how numbers work. That being said, the Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry platforms would have been significantly lower in order to lower the average. In fact, if my math is correct, and assuming that only the 4 mentioned platforms are being considered, then 7.2 hours would have been spent on both Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry combined.

64 percent of users downloaded a game in the last 30 days, with 60 percent for weather apps and 56 percent for social networking apps. If you aren’t familiar with statistics and realized that this is more than 100, I would just like to add that you have to remember that a user can download from more than one category.

But how hardcore is the gaming? Well, it isn’t quite Call of Duty: Black Ops or World of Warcraft, but the idea is there. The users want to game, not be educated. With the mentioned 64 percent of downloaders grabbing a game from their market, only 11 percent of those were “education/learning” apps.

Source: Ars Technica

This will apparently happen once iOS 5 is released sometime this year. At the same time, they will update the Mac OSx to be able to handle OTA updates as well. This will be quite interesting and a very nice update for Apple and its customers.

Basically, right now there are no OTA updates for a simple reason. When you sync to iTunes, any update that is given to iTunes is digitally signed for and protects Apple for security and legal reasons. That’s why when you update an app, you are required to download the entire app. You give the app the way to run in the way that it says it will for that update.

Quite often, users do not even know when new updates are available. iPad’s and iPod’s are often rarely plugged in. Once you have your music and a wall charger, there really isn’t a need to. However, that also means many users do not get these updates, which leads to Apple updating slower and not knowing what is needed as quickly.

The update for Mac OSx to Lion is expected to be available via the App Store. This is expected for a couple of reasons. One, Steve Jobs called the MacBook Air the “future of notebooks.” What people often forget about the Air is that there is no optical drive. That being said, it’s a necessity that there be the option to OTA update in the future, not only for iOS, but for Mac OSx as well.

Source: Ars Technica

Anyway, there is a new game amidst the App Store entitled Stem Stumper. And this one is even adapted to be able to be played by the visually impaired. Here is what Ars Technica has to say on Stem Stumper:

The premise is simple: you guide an anthropomorphic plant creature around a series of obstacles—ranging from angry tree stumps to clouds of weed killer—in search of bags of fertilizer. You drag your finger along to create a path and various clues will alert you when you stumble across something important. If you’re playing in the standard mode you’ll be able to see as well as hear when you get close to something. And when you play in sonar mode, the visuals melt away completely, forcing you to focus on the sound.

But what about the basic instructions? How would someone that is in fact visually impaired even know what they are supposed to do? Well, the answer is simple. Should they be able to download and open the game, Stem Stumper supports VoiceOver. It can remove the written instructions and tell the user what to do. Sound effects and changes in the music will guide you to your goal.

Stem Stumper is available via the App Store for $2, and is quite entertaining. I am not quite sure if it is available for the iPod Touch or iPad, but it is supported on the iPhone with iOS 4 or higher.

Source: Ars Technica

Source: Trend Micro

If you can’t say that’s one of the coolest things ever, what are you doing here? No, just kidding, I still love you. But now, this is just so awesome! I want one…but it’s so much money. $300 for one of those aircrafts. At least the App is free…